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Elimination Chamber 2014 starts off with a match that deserved a more enthusiastic crowd as Big E defends his Intercontinental Championship against Jack Swagger in a physical match with plenty of great spots (almost all from Big E), including an awesome leapfrog early on, a spear into the steps that looked nasty, and, later, the signature spear through the ropes and onto the floor. What hurts this match most is that Big E's character was not yet fully defined while Swagger was actually beginning to get face pops for his "We The People" bit despite being a heel. There's a brief spell when they lose the crowd, but the action is good throughout and I love that this match was given the time needed to feel like a hard-fought victory for Big E. (3/5)
Bad News Barrett makes an announcement about how "Mother Russia" had more gold medals in the Winter Olympics and then we get a promo out of Daniel Bryan backstage after a video package recaps the punishment he'd endured at the hands of Kane over the previous few weeks.
Back in the ring, The New Age Outlaws defended their WWE Tag Team Championships against The Usos. The Outlaws get a good reaction for their pre-match promo (no surprise there), but really had no business being presented as a top team in 2014. Ironically, Billy Gunn is much more interesting and fun to watch now a decade later. Maybe its because working with The Acclaimed (and his sons) is fresh and this was stale out of the box? I'm also not going to lie - I find Road Dogg insufferable and didn't think he was particularly great back in the 90s either. The Usos, like Big E, would grow to become much better, fuller characters. At this point, they were indistinguishable and not yet even known for delivering great matches. There are audible "CM Punk" chants around minute 6-7. I'm guessing the Outlaws were brought back not only as part of the Authority angle but also as a way to capitalize on nostalgia in the lead-up to the unveiling of the WWE Network (which launched the day after this show), but they would've been better in small doses and them having the titles almost seems like an insult considering how solid the rest of the tag team division had become by 2014 (with not only the Usos climbing the ranks but Rollins and Reigns, The Rhodes Brothers, The Real Americans, and, if I'm not mistaken, Los Conquistadors (The Colons) all around). (1.5/5)
At ringside, Michael Cole, Jerry Lawler, and JBL review how to use the WWE Network. Riveting stuff.
Darren Young took on Titus O'Neill in the next bout. The former tag partners had broken up on SmackDown a month earlier, bringing about a feud that I don't remember at all. I always thought O'Neill was a solid hot tag but that Young was about as bland as bland gets. An audible "We Want Lesnar" chant breaks out in the first minute, which tells you how into this match the crowd was. Neither of these guys are great wrestlers and, without someone else in the ring to really carry the match, both get exposed here. Young, the better all-arounder, is less awkward than his opponent, but he's also less charismatic and interesting. Titus, meanwhile, has presence and there are moments - like when he slaps the shit out of Young's chest while applying an abdominal stretch - when he is very impressive, but he looks less so the longer the match goes and the more he needs to sell. His athleticism is undeniable and I can see the reasoning behind letting these guys go out and have the most competitive match possible, but by having such an even match, nobody was really elevated here. (2/5)
"Bad News" Barrett cuts another promo antagonizing the fans. We then go to the night's panel - The Miz, Mark Henry, and Rey Mysterio. They give their predictions for the night's Elimination Chamber match with all three in agreement that we will see a new champion crowned because Randy Orton has been on a cold streak.
The Shield took on The Wyatt Family in the next match, a battle that has been widely hailed as one of the best matches the WWE has produced in the past 20 years. I'm not sure I'd go quite as high on it...but I do think the context of the match is a bit lost on me. Watching this a decade (or close it) later, much of the mystique has dissipated. Beside the fact that two-out-of-six of the participants suffered tragic deaths, something that is hard not to think about, there is still a lingering sense that this match - a match that was supposed to be the genesis of years and years of great storylines built around both teams - ends up being arguably the peak of the Wyatt Family and the beginning of the end for the Shield. Though I do think The Shield's war with Evolution yielded some unbelievably great matches (in fact, I actually prefer their match at Extreme Rules 2014 more than this), I was not a fan of any subsequent reunion or the various other feuds and matches they had with one another in the years that followed. But, even ignoring these things, its also hard to appreciate this match for how action-packed and exciting it was when, in the years that followed, the WWE would go on to have multiple outstanding multi-man matches and AEW's use of six-man tags would push things even further. This match has an undeniably awesome atmosphere, the work is uniformly great and there are multiple elements that stand out - Rollins getting double-chokeslammed through a table is a fantastic spot, there's some great powerhouse stuff from Roman and Rowan, Bray Wyatt and Dean Ambrose's character work - but I do think this match was a bit overrated at the time just because, compared to what else was on this card, it stood out as special. Had I reviewed it at the time, I might've gone a bit higher, but in 2023, I'm only going with 4 stars. (4/5)
AJ Lee was supposed to defend her WWE Divas Champion against Natalya (I think? I forget), but defended it against Cameron of the Funkadactyls instead. Classic WWE there as Cameron was the more "conventional" beauty (read: lighter skinned and less curvy) but was seemingly less driven and less athletic than her fellow Funkadactly, Naomi, who ended up being a Women's Champion and having a very well-received run in TNA/Impact Wrestling. Anyway, this is about what you'd expect for a sub-4 minute match featuring a relatively untrained challenger going up against AJ Lee, who was good for her era but certainly not an all-time great or anything, and probably not even in the top 50 of any era if we included international talent. Tamina Snuka, who looks only a hair more coordinated than Cameron. This would've been worse if it would've went longer, but the placement of this match on the show tells you all you need to know about how much confidence the WWE had in their women's division at this point. A point awarded for Cameron's charisma (she may not have been a mat technician, but she did exude a good babyface personality) and AJ doing what she does to the best of her ability. (1/5)
Next up - Batista's singles return against Alberto Del Rio. This was an absolute mess from start to finish. Batista had returned at the Royal Rumble but had been met with a much more lukewarm reaction than anticipated as the crowd was fully behind Daniel Bryan (Bryan Danielson) and simply didn't want anyone else as the top babyface of the company at the time, even John Cena. Meanwhile, Del Rio was a bit of a lukewarm heel at this point. He'd been thoroughly vanquished by Cena in two consecutive PPVs and his title reign prior to that was flat so he was coming into this zero momentum. To try to get heat, Del Rio comes out in a neck brace and a cast and Jerry Lawler and pretends to be injured so he can sneak attack Batista. Jerry Lawler notes on commentary that he did the same trick on Bret Hart years earlier. He means 20 years earlier and while it was goofy then, the WWE product was goofier in general and Bret Hart was a beloved babyface and Jerry Lawler was a despised heel. In 2014, the WWE's main event scene was way more serious and had been more serious for decades, Batista was not over as a babyface, and Del Rio was getting "go away heat" and clearly unmotivated. And so, watching Del Rio dominate Batista through treachery doesn't garner boos, it gets mildly cheered while a segment of the audience alternates between chanting "Bootista" and "CM Punk" (also "Y2J" at one point). When Batista does make his comeback, its not very riveting because of how predictable it all is (the big transition is Del Rio running his shoulder into the post, which was just about the most overused momentum-flipper in history in 2014 and is even moreso 10 years later). This match goes 7 minutes but feels like 14 when it should've gone maybe 3-4 and felt like 2. The shits. (0/5)
Main event time - Randy Orton defending his WWE Championship against John Cena, Cesaro, Sheamus, Daniel Bryan, and Christian in the Elimination Chamber. Cesaro and Sheamus started things off, these two showing off their undeniable chemistry. I don't recall if it was later this year or the following year that they'd end up having a series of big matches against eachother...Anyway, Daniel Bryan comes in third and is clearly the fan favorite. Bryan is selling a shoulder injury caused by Kane but he still gets to show off his toughness, speed, and ridiculously stiff kicks. Again, the chemistry with both Sheamus and Cesaro is on full display and its a shame that Bryan's eventual WWE Championship run was cut short by injury because both guys would've made strong TV opponents for Bryan later in the spring/summer (it is believed by most that the plan was for Bryan to drop the title to Lesnar at SummerSlam). Christian comes in at four and, kinda like Sheamus, his role in this match seemed to be to serve as "the glue" more than actually getting much spotlight for himself (which seems reserved for Bryan and, to a lesser degree, Cesaro). Things really pick up when Cena comes in as its clear now that we're headed towards some eliminations...though its not clear who and how will be the first to eat a pin. The best spot of the match might be soon upon Orton's entrance, though, as the heel hides in his cell and mocks Sheamus until the Celtic Warrior hits a nasty Brogue Kick through the cell wall. Its not pretty, but that's kind of the point. With everyone in the ring, we got a whole bunch of cool cut-offs and exchanges, including Cesaro doing the Swing to Orton, Christian eliminating Sheamus with a frog splash only to get struck with Bryan's flying knee to finish him off, and Cesaro managing to lift Cena and Bryan at the same time for a suplex. After Cesaro was finally finished off (after an impressive 30+ minutes in the ring), it was down to three and we got our first controversial finish as the Wyatts showed up and beat up on Cena (and Bryan to a lesser degree). The live crowd loved this and it was a nice way to build towards the Wyatt/Cena match that would take place at WrestleMania XXX. With all the drama going on, Kane also ended up in the pod, though his involvement in the final minutes was a little bit less well-received. If I'm not mistaken, the conventional wisdom at the time was that Bryan would somehow leave the Chamber with the title - but that Orton, through a rematch clause, would then insert himself into the Mania event to make it a 3-way with Batista. There were also many, many people who just thought the WWE was going to keep Bryan out of the main event of Mania altogether - myself included at times. Kane screwing Bryan out of a victory here seemed to point in that direction (and potentially a Kane/Bryan match at Mania that absolutely nobody wanted to see), which may help explain why the crowd was so disappointed with this chapter of the story. All in all, this was one of the better PG-versions of an Elimination Chamber, especially up to this point, but I think it has been surpassed more recently as the WWE got better and better and the wrestlers pushed the envelope more and more. (3.5/5)
I wouldn't call this a "one-match show" as the main event has some great moments and the opener is strong, but Elimination Chamber 2014 is mostly remembered for the epic Shield/Wyatt match and, unfortunately for the WWE, two horrible booking decisions (the finish to the Chamber match and everything that went into Batista's return). The Cameron/AJ Lee match and the aforementioned Batista bout are among the worst matches the company had put on in the 2010s and the Titus/Young and Tag Titles matches aren't all that much better. With a Kwang Score of 2.14-out-of-5, but at least one match that is arguably one of the top 5 best WWE six-mans of all time, this earns a.
FINAL RATING - Watch It...With Remote in Hand
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